TableConnect®, powered by the Inforce 6540™ SBC, is the latest multi-touch connected “table device” that provides access to millions of applications available on Android based phones and tablets, but now on a much bigger screen. So, what’s unique about the sleek plug and play device you may ask, and what are some of the use cases? For starters, the product has a super robust touch surface made out of 4mm safety glass, a projective capacitive touch sensor underneath, and an industrial HD display. Secondly, there is no specialized software to be developed or the need to learn anything new for end-users—just utilize the Android apps already available in the Google Play store. The TableConnect interactive display simply resembles your Android smartphone screen; only that it’s about 100 X larger, making it easier for a target audience to find the right information with a few taps and swipes from their fingertips. Just think of the many different places businesses could use the stylish system—it could be an interactive customer-facing information kiosk at corporate headquarters (portrait, landscape, and table-top modes) or a retail outlet, a collaboration platform in conference rooms, at events and trade shows, or perhaps as an exotic at-home coffee table with an interactive screen that brings together people to hang out and play games.

The developer community worldwide for Android apps is legion. Now, those same apps can be optimized to take advantage of a much larger screen to reach out to new customers. The TableConnect device unlocks a huge potential for newer digital signage and interactive display use cases both in the home and at businesses. When the core technology can be integrated into any kind of structure in the future, the possibilities become endless.

So, what’s really under the hood?

It was fascinating to hear from Johann Rath, TableConnect’s CEO that his smart engineers were able to quickly put together an ingenious system, thanks to the high-end processing capability and versatile connectivity of the Inforce 6540™ Single Board Computer (SBC). His team initially tried to prototype the product with a previous generation Cortex-A9 based SBC that didn’t quite have the chops or deliver the flexibility with customizing the Android OS. Once the TableConnect’s engineers gave the Inforce 6540 SBC a try, there was no turning back. The Inforce 6540 SBC is driven by Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805, one of the most powerful mobile processors that can be found in several high-end smartphones. TableConnect engineers were able to easily add new functions and adapt a few things to the open-source Android kernel provided along with the board support package (BSP) from Inforce.

Full flexibility in customizing Android OS and applications that run on the Inforce 6540 SBC

TableConnect added several new functions to the Android platform running on the Inforce 6540: Google Play Store and the ability to install 1 million apps; an HID-based interface to communicate with external smart buttons for functions such as Home, Back or orientation change; an internal and external watchdog; an interface to control external displays and active cooling systems, and the ability to change the screen orientation for HDMI devices.

The Inforce 6540 SBC drives multiple peripherals on the TableConnect, including 55- and 32-inch full HD displays, projective capacitive touch sensors with a fast response time of 5ms, 100 multi-touch points (though Android limits it to 10), and integrated stereo speakers. The Inforce 6540 SBC also provides excellent connectivity via BT4.1, dual-channel/dual-stream WiFi, and GbE. Location based apps can also be enabled by the onboard GPS/GNSS capability. The 6-DoF motion sensors (Accel, Gyro) on the SBC add to developing unique applications. TableConnect engineers are quite impressed with the performance of the Inforce 6450 SBC, which is available with the Android Lollipop (5.0.2) release and support for a 13MP Sony camera adapter card (ACC-1H30). With its native ability to capture and display 4K Ultra HD video (H.265 hardware-assisted decodes), future possibilities with the TableConnect are enormous. Here’re a couple of videos that demo the product:

Last week’s panel discussion at the Churchill Club titled “Civilian Drones: The Opportunity Takes Flight” touched varied topics from open source autopilot designs (such as the Pixhawk PX4) that have democratized access to technologies, to auto-navigation and collision avoidance, increasing battery life and payload weight, FAA regulations, and everything in between. The past year has indeed seen frenzied activity in the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) or drone space. Several use cases have taken shape, but how many of them are going to be commercially viable and sustainable in the long run? Businesses and large corporations are actively looking to use drones to monitor their assets, infrastructure, and operations. Start-ups in this space are trying to carve a niche by differentiating with unique underlying technologies such as collision avoidance and auto-navigation, which seek to unlock the potential for new use-cases. New services that offer businesses and corporate entities instant access to professional “drone pilots” with their fleet of UAVs for hire, provide imagery and data collection for a fee. Here are a few quick takeaways from the discussions. Continue reading Commercial Drones: Where’re the Viable Use-cases and Core Technologies to Differentiate in a Crowded Marketplace?→

Software Update for the Inforce 6540™ Single Board Computer and the Inforce 6501™ Micro SOM (powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805/APQ8084 processor)

A full-featured Android Board Support Package (BSP) running Lollipop 5.0.2 on the Inforce 6540 SBC and the Inforce 6501 Micro SOM is available for download from Inforce Computing’s TechWeb for registered users. This is a significant enhancement in software support for Qualcomm Snapdragon processor-based embedded designs from Inforce Computing.

Software Platform VersionThe following software platforms are supported in this release:

Want to find out more about the free-and-open-source-software (FOSS) Freedreno Linux graphics drivers or embedded Android for Snapdragon basedInforce 6410 and Inforce 6540 SBCs? If youplan to be at the Linux Foundation’s Embedded Linux Conference (ELC) and the co-located Android Builders Summit, March 23-25 in San Jose, CA this week, check out these really interesting presentations/ tutorials where Inforce Computing’s products (such as the Inforce 6410 and Inforce 6540 SBCs) will be shown in demos. The ELC is being held at the Marriott in downtown San Jose, CA.

Rob Clark (the main guy behind the FOSS Freedreno Linux graphics drivers for the Adreno 3XX and 4XX series of GPUs in the Snapdragon family of processors) will talk about the progress he and other fellow contributors have made to an upstream gallium and kernel drm/kms driver. This has resulted in software that now also works on Inforce’s Snapdragon based products (composited DE’s like gnome-shell, Wayland, games, WebGL, etc., which one has come to take for granted on x86 based desktops!) If you need to get a sneak preview of his talk, check out what was shown at the recent Linaro Connect in Hong Kong:

Also, stop by the Technical Showcase at the ELC (see details below) to see the Freedreno demos running on the Inforce 6410 and Inforce 6540 SBCs. I’ll be there supporting Rob and would be glad to answer any questions you may have about Inforce’s products.